Chapter 5
Consolidation 1928 - 1934
Colleagues and Local Evangelists
5.01
The Missionaries returned to England in 1927. This time Reginald travelled over 10,000 miles addressing meetings to promote the mission. The Annual General Meeting of the Society was held on the 21st January 1928 in Westminster Central Hall with the Revd Ernest J Barton, the minister of Penge Congregational Church in the chair. One of the new missionary colleagues,
All Nations Bible College - Bruce Foxall standing far left
Bruce Foxall, recently graduated from All Nations Bible College, was introduced to the meeting. Miss Irene Hadley and Miss Gorst also joined the mission in place of Miss Ramsey. Reginald asked the annual meeting for £500 to pay for his larger party’s return journey. He also wanted to build a new schoolhouse and to acquire a rotary printing press. They left for India in the early autumn of 1928, making their way into the hills by way of the Kaladan River. At Akyab at the mouth of the Kaladan, a Lakher was waiting to welcome the party home. At every stage up the river more Lakher’s appeared until on the last day three hundred came down to bring them into Serkawr. They arrived at the mission station on 12th December 1928. A Gayal was killed and a great welcome fest was quickly prepared for the missionaries and their new companions. Bruce Foxall recorded his first impressions of the mission bungalow with its polished wood floors, “It seemed like home, no better place on earth”. Very soon Reginald had his new recruits writing pieces on their observations for the mission’s quarterly news letter; The Lakher Pioneer. Miss Gorst reported on a Christian funeral of a child, Irene Hadley on Maud’s Store Room Window and Bruce Foxall on a visit to a sick child. As with miss Ramsey, but much more so, we begin to see the mission through others eyes. Reginald seemed to leave them to tell the stories of people and life on the mission while he confined himself to statistics. Each year his annual report becomes progressively more like a company report with summaries and tables of data.
5.02
As the 1927-1928 furlough began there appeared to be a step change in the Lakher Church’s progress. In the missionaries absence three Lakher Christian men were dedicated as Evangelists. They were commissioned go to every village throughout the tribe, they were to visit every house in each village on their itinerary and they were to hold a service in every house at which they found a welcome. The results were immediate! The evangelists return from their first tour with the names of three hundred and sixty-four new Christian Enquirers. A Deacon was appointed for the Serkawr church to stand in for Reginald in his absence, the school thrived with 24 boarders beside local day attendees and the Sunday school continuing without break averaging sixty-one in attendance. The total of those enrolled as Christian enquirers doubled during the furlough year. The touring Evangelists quickly became a major feature of the mission’s work, by 1933 there were men out on tour continuasly.
5.03
Reginald’s first task on return was to repair and put in good order all the compound buildings and clear back the intrusive jungle growth. By this time the Mission property consisted of:- a School House, the Mission Bungalow with its Cook House, the Meeting House (Church), out houses, the Boys (adult school) Hostel and its Cook House, Printing Room, Office and ten mission workers houses. He also added a fowl house, a new wood shed and granary. In an attempt to ease the water supply problem Reginald bought two water tanks, presumably of iron, they each held over 300 gallons. He did not tell how these 4 foot plus cubes of heavy metal were carried to the mission. They worked well, harvesting rainwater from the bungalow roof, and saving the labour of carrying water from 400 feet below. At that time there were generally more than one hundred living on the compound. That year one of the mission workers died leaving a widow. The mission was faced for the first time with a dependent. They took on her support and providing her with a home on the compound. Reginald’s next big project was to build a new enlarged general hall to be 42 x 25 feet, It replaced the existing schoolroom. The new building would continue as before to serve as school room for the adult learners, church and socials hall. The new building could hold up to 500 people. Reginald declared his new hall to be a great triumph, although it was a bamboo structure and not made from sawn timber.
5.04
Reginald now set out a demanding program of study for his new recruits. His aim was to make them proficient in Lakher language and culture and they were committed to long hours of work. It was nearly two years before they were discharged from their studies. In his usual thorough manner he devised searching examinations, and expected, and got from Bruce Foxall and Irene Hadley, excellent papers. He awarded each of them a pass with a mark of around 75%. His third recruit, Miss Gorst, did not settle to mission life in the hills and asked to be released to returned home after the first year.
5.04
Miss Ramsey and Tlosai had started a primary day school for local girls before the furlough. Irene and Tlosai soon had it up and running again with ten girls in regular attendance. It would appear that Bruce spent some time with a new boy’s primary class too. There now appears to be two streams of education emerging and it is now necessary to try to differentiate between these. The new girl’s school seems to be the beginnings of conventional primary education. Until now school has been Reginald’s original adult based learning. Reginald always referred to his students as boys even though they ranged from eight to over forty years; I have mostly changed his usage to students in anticipation of the current difficulty. In the annual report or the year 1929 the adult school began with 32 students and ended the year with 52. Each boarding student was costing £6 to maintain for the 10-month year. One Matu student joined the adult school that year. As a result of the famine the previous year the 1930 school was smaller with more dayboys. The girl’s day school soon rose to 25 (still not certain how many are primary and how many are adult learners) but by 1934 there is a note in the Lakher Pioneer to the effect the younger boys had been integrated into the girl’s school. It would seem that the first regular pattern of primary education for Lakher children had been firmly established.
5.05
Reginald and Bruce quickly commissioned the new rotary press. It was a great improvement on the original machine; turning out 600 copies per hour. The print room had to be enlarged to 34x24 feet to cope with the added production. Together they produced a new enlarged hymnbook and a 2,500-word Matu dictionary. In 1930 Reginald returned to his bible translation work; Genesis and Malachi were in hand, later he finished the Psalms. He reprinted the Kumi dictionary for the Matu tribe, enlarging it to 5,000 words; he also got out in Matu a revised primer and a collection of ten hymns. It is remarkable how much quicker Reginald was getting this new language translated and onto the press. One can only conclude that there were similarities if not many duplicate usages, even so his volume of work was still formidable. By the end of 1931 funds were tight and they ran out of paper, bringing printing work to a temporary stop. The full edition of the New Testaments was now in general circulation. Reginald reckoned that there were 50 copies in Serkawr village alone being read each night and hundreds through the Lakher hills. In his next year’s annual report he claimed that the New Testament was being read in 43 out of the 80 Lakher villages. In 1931 Reginald handed over charge of the Printing room to Bruce. The local monthly magazine which was begun before the last furlough and was sent out to the all Christian in the villages now ran to 300 copies. In 1932 they printed 400 copies of each edition. The next year it was renamed ‘The Bugle Call’ and reached a circulation of 464. When he heard of a Lakher learning to read and write with just the aid of the Bugle Call Reginald devised a four-page primer to go out with the magazine, Bruce printed 1,000 of these. Many learnt to read and write at home through this primitive distance-learning course.
5.06
Bruce wrote a piece for the Lakher Pioneer in which he described Sunday worship at Serkawr. Men & boys would sit on one side of the church with women & girls on the other.
Albert Bruce Foxall 1903 - 1977
There was a male choir, which led the singing, and everyone had hymnbooks. At the scripture reading many would follow in their own new testaments. Communion, he observed to be in the style of the Baptist or Congregational Churches. Each year attendance at Serkawr’s Sunday services grew steadily. The Christian socials become more and more popular with up to 200 present. to organize English party games were for such numbers must have stretched the team’s ingenuity. Soon more than twenty percent of the home village could be claimed as Christian. With the passage of time inevitably there was a growing demand for Christian burial. A Serkawr graveyard was dedicated and fenced off complete with a Lytch gate. Sunday school attendance in 1929 averaged 78, of these 16 were new Christian enquirers. From the Sunday school that year there were 8 baptisms and 2 Christian marriages. On the compound there were 4 infant deaths, 3 adults and one worker died. Reginald recorded 200 Christian enquirers from other tribes. 1929’s tally of baptisms was: 115 Lakhers and one Matu. In his Annual Report for 1929 Reginald declared that the Monsoon had been very severe, he could count 100 landslides from the bungalow. Forty-seven inches of rain fell in just fifteen days. The Kaladan rose eighty feet above normal cutting them off for six weeks. The mission boat was swept away and lost. Reginald recorded that 1929 was a famine year as a result of the bamboo flowering. Every 48 years the bamboo in the Mizoram hills flowers and then the whole plant dies leaving vast swaths of rotting vegetation, even if it is cut the bamboo cane is useless that year. The rotting canes create a bumper food event for rats. They multiply to plague proportions soon polishing off the bamboo and moving on to all other crops and invading village stores. Consequentially there follows a year of famine throughout the hills. There is a puzzling aspect to this report as records show this phenomenon to have occurred in the years 2007 and 1959, which should make the next previous event 1911, not 1929 as recorded by Reginald! To add to the mission’s troubles that year, wild dogs killed a number of their farm animals. The famine was followed by a bumper year in 1930, then by a very dry year in 1931. The missionaries reported that 1933 was also a long hot summer resulting in lots of illness and death; a whooping cough epidemic swept through the hill then dysentery, all exacerbated by under nourishment due to the persistent shortage of food. In the heat of that year a cyclone struck and took the school roof completely off.
5.07
Irene Hadley painted another vivid word picture, to and to Miss Ramsey’s, of Maud’s Pantry Window. They were in the storeroom with the window open for business at 6am, soon they were trading eggs for salt, paper or soap. Sick child were brought to window and many other transactions and activities carried forward. Miss Gorst’s account of a Christian Wedding set the scene with all the school turning out on the compound. When they were all ready they march of to fetch the bride and groom back to the Church for the wedding service. Quite a contrast to the first Christian wedding that was conducted quietly in the Bungalow with just the couple and the missionaries. At the church door rice was thrown over the couple; the missionaries yet again importing their own customs to enrich their converts life style. Another innovation, the Christmas Celebrations, began to take place amongst Christians in other Lakher villages. Several more Lakher villages erected their own meeting rooms – church buildings. In 1931 in an off hand line in the Lakher it was reported that an orphaned new born had been taken on by the baby’s Christian aunt. It will be recalled that the Lakher tribal custom dictated that when a mother died in childbirth the baby was untouchable and must be abandoned in the jungle. The missionaries had intervened to save children in the early years; the Gospel was now changing attitudes and saving lives in many ways. Another important milestone came with the survival of the first Lakher twins. Twins were traditionally regarded as a bad omen and would be quickly consigned to the jungle. About this time Irene tells of the first such to be accepted by the parents and successfully reared. Their survival was secured by having them quickly dedicated as Christian children; that which was dedicated to the Lord Jesus could not bring bad luck! While the Reginald and Bruce were away Tlosai heard a rate in the storeroom, instead of the rodent her search reviled a fresh wet cobra skin. She fetched Irene and together they search very, very carefully for the snake, eventually it was found behind the stove drying off. They sent for the schoolmaster who came and captured it in a basket and then disposed of it safely. Even after 25 years the compound remained only a few steps from the wild. Another event occurred which would stay in the mission’s story; a newborn child was brought to the mission with the request that the missionaries would rear it as its mother had died. The child was baptized Peter Richard and grew up as one of the Lorrain’s family. At the centenary celebrations his aged widow Sapi was present and their son Reginald and daughter Lillian together with several of his younger children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
5.08
Bruce began to report in much more detail on the medical work, telling of a typical session assisting Maud with the day’s dispensary. Many iron tablets were handed out for anaemia, iodine for goitres, a poultice as applied to a swollen leg and a septic splinter drawn with a poultice so that it could be seen and cut out. He recorded 276 patients in one week, 59 of them on one day. In the autumn of 1931 Bruce went off on his first solo Evangelizing tour of the villages. He was away for 10 days. The typical programme for his village visit looked like this: On arrival he would pitch his tent and give out sweets to the children, next, with the aid of pictures, he would tell a scripture story; the prodigal son seemed to be a favourite, he would also get out and play his violin to accompany hymns. The instrument was a novelty in the hills. At 4pm he would open a field dispensary and at 6pm he would hold a Gospel meeting. He took back the name of a good number of new Christian Enquirers, twenty from his first village alone. He continued this daily programme through the villages until he reached Saiha. There were now 190 Christians on the church list from the village. He stayed over the Sunday and joining 150 in worship. When he left he had ten more new names to add. What a difference from the pioneer days when five years toil only yielded two names. Reginald and Maud’s twenty-five years of faithful labour had not been in vain. Bruce discovered on his travels several who had been learnt to read by poring over the Bugle Call magazine with the help of a friend. Later in another piece in the Lakher Pioneer he told of the death of a Christian child. The mother, who was not a Christian, came soon after the funeral to put her name down as a Christian Learner. She said that she could not bear to be eternally separated from her child. The father also came a little later to put his name down, but he had a problem. He asked if it would be all right if he took another wife so that he could have another son. Bruce told him that it would not be in order and he should keep his wife and comfort her in their loss.
5.09
Money was always a problem. Although the supporters raised their annual giving over the Mission 25 years from the initial £150 to more like £1,000; Reginald’s vision always out anticipated the funds available. The ever growing demand for medicine lead the missionaries to introduce a small charge of eggs or rice for some medicines. Another blow to the mission’s logistics was the recall home of Reginald’s brother Herbert. While Herbert was the Baptist Church’s Missionary stationed in Lunglei he had acted first as Reginald’s sponsor to the Lakher people and forever after his agent. Lunglei was really Serkawr’s local Post Office; from there Herbert would recieve and send on the mission’s goods and services. Reginald was meanwhile developing his Kaladan rout through Burma but never to the same effect as their first rout into the hills. He persuaded the home Mission Committee treasurer to raise the cash for an outboard motor for his latest boat. He had several goes to produce an effective river craft; the latest one was constructed on a bamboo frame over which he stretched oiled canvas. It was 51 feet long and 16 feet wide and could carry 12 people safely. When the Kaladan flooded to the record 80 feet about normal this was the boat that was lost having not been drawn far enough up. Reginald recruited a further missionary in 1932 to come and evangelize the Kumi people over the Burma border. The new man arrived with his wife and children on the coast but the Superintendent at Chittagong would not grant the necessary permission for him and his family from coming up river for three months. When they finally arrived the new missionary was clearly not a well man. Within three months Reginald had packed them off back home. The poor man was hospitalized in Calcutta for some time before he was fit enough to embark for England. Only two of Reginald’s four recruits completed their full tour this time and his final recruit, Miss Marjory Colbran, who joined them on their return from England in 1935 but could not bring herself to go further than Port Said. Irene Hadley completed her tour with honour but did not wish to return after 1934. Only Bruce Foxall continued with the mission after that date. Bruce, a very eligible young bachelor, obviously made a hit pretty soon with Tlosai. They were engaged around 1932 but Reginald would not allow them to make that public for a further two years.
Bruce and Tlosai
The first that the Mission supporters knew was through an announcement of the Lakher Pioneer of that quarter in which the young couple will marry. They married at Penge Congregational Church on 20th September 1934 and honeymooned on the Isle of White.
5.10
The gathering pace at which Christianity spread through the hills during the 1930’s can be gathered from Reginald’s annual reports. In 1932 he recorded 56 baptism and 1075 Lakhers on the Christian role, 202 Lushais, 216 Chins and 1 Matu. By 1933 there were 21 Christian Marriages and 148 Baptisms, the Christian role aquired 777 new Lakher names bringing their total to 1852, 14 more Lushais, 152 new Chin names but still only 1 Matu. Reginald noted that on one Sunday that year there were 317 in church, 94 partook of the communion and 15 were baptized. The hymnbook had been enlarged to 191 items and the reprint ran to 1,000 copies. For 1934 he recorded 45 marriages, 600 baptisms and a grand total of 3086 Christians in the hills of whom 8 now come from the Matu/Kumi people. There were 385 recipients of presents around the Christmas tree and 189 attended the Watch Night Service to see in the New Year. In another new development they took 16 village children for a holiday. They all stayed at their retreat bungalow close to the river crossing. Great excitement ensued when Reginald to them all for a trip in his boat with the aid of the outboard motor. Despite the roaring success in the hills the home treasurer was struggling to supply enough funds to keep the mission in business. At the end of 1933 he complains to the Larker Pioneer readers that he had only been able to balance the books with the aid of a recently received legacy of three hundred pounds. But Europe was deep in its own troubles of recession and the gathering confrontation of nations.
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